The Depth Charge

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Ten Notes on a Non-Noteworthy Night
1. Lest we forget, Darren Collison *can* dunk.
2. Glen Davis’s questionable-call reaction face is priceless. (See above photo.)
3. Speaking of Davis, even though it was against an injury-rattled, foul-plagued Pelicans line-up, the Clippers’ bench defense looks better with him playing.
4. Really, the defense looked pretty good. It held Anthony Davis to a single field goal.
5. Danny Granger didn’t play on account of paperwork.
6. The Tweet of the Night is actually kind of devastating for those who remember what Eric Gordon looked like circa 2010.
7. Blake Griffin increased his streak of consecutive games with 20 or more points to 19, the most for any Clipper since Dominique Wilkins (1994).
8. Austin Rivers hit a meaningless game-winner.
9. Jokes aside, Rivers once again looked like a legitimate NBA player — especially when driving toward the hoop — which wasn’t something you could confidently say about him last year.
10. Meanwhile, Chris Paul looked like a legitimate “point god.” He hasn’t moved this spryly for months. And that’s great news for Clipper fans.– Patrick James

On Point
Tonight’s starting five featured every point guard on the Clippers roster. That’s right, all two of them!

Chris Paul and Darren Collison manned the backcourt in the game’s opening stretch, giving Los Angeles an early 11-point advantage. The two returned to the hardwood together to begin the third, extending a 15-point lead to 23 points before exiting the game for good.

This dual point guard look has become more commonplace in the NBA recently, best served as a sporadic change in pace to throw off opponents. The upside is commonly a boost in long-range shooting and decreased turnovers, the major drawbacks being size and defense. The Pelicans starting backcourt of Brian Roberts and Eric Gordon are on the shorter side in their own right, thus the Clippers weren’t hampered by the usual setbacks of running the two-PG lineup.

We don’t see this approach by L.A. very often, simply because of the team’s lack of point guards. However, in the 222 minutes prior to tonight, the Paul-Collison duo outscored the opposition by 7.9 points per 100 possessions. It could potentially be a fun and useful twist if a third point man was added to the club, or Crawford was utilized at the one more.– David Vertsberger

Patrick James is a writer and editor based in Los Angeles. He’s written for LA Weekly, Fast Company, Bullett, Filter, and other motley publications. He was formerly the managing editor of Very Short List, and before that, GOOD.

“It could potentially be a fun and useful twist if a third point man was
added to the club, or Crawford was utilized at the one more.”

Crawford has plenty of time playing PG and that’s why they haven’t signed a 3rd PG, there was even a stretch in the season that Crawford was the one making plays and Collison was just, well, not being a PG and only making a shot for himself.

The 1-PG line up works in stretchs or against certain opponents, but it won’t work so well against teams with stronger or bigger backcourt though.

Clips4

Crawford historically has been bad playing PG. He had his career worst stats when he was in POR for the year before he signed with LAC because he ran PG full time. In spurts, Crawford as PG will be good. He needs to keep playing off the ball for large stretches and I agree with Doc that Collison fits better with him. Collison is more of a score-first PG, but in terms of playmaking and passing, he’s better than Crawford. In the playoffs when the rotation shortens anyway, I see Hollins, Green, and Dudley falling out of the rotation (assuming Redick is healthy).